What America needs now is a return to the glory days of the muckrakers. Muckrakers became a force to be reckoned with among the Americans, who proved that the pen was far mightier than the sword or even the dollar. it was Perf. Teddy Roosevelt, who inspired these journalists, gave his nickname time and time again. If not for these tenacious offspring, the greatest American ever-Thomas Paine- would have been corrupt politicians and business. The people of the time were enjoying the enormous freedom from central scrutiny and accountability that they enjoy in the Bush administration and the bosses in the business world.
Muckraking is possible because of the incredible growth of newspapers in the late 1800s in America. Circulation figures exploded as the number of newspapers in the US grew more than fifty-fold from 1870 to two thousand by 1910. Those newspapers enjoyed a tenfold expansion in subscriptions. People all over the country not only study the news of the day, but can also read and understand it; which was not possible half a century ago. The effects of capitalism on how news is reported can be illustrated by how newspapers began to be created and serve the news of the day. It should be noted that newspapers until this time, especially in smaller cities and towns, focused on local news and part of that coverage involved rumors of local celebrities. With increasing circulation and the ability through the inventions of telephones and telegraphs to report immediately on what was happening across the country, newspaper editors and publishers were the first to expand on what had already been a successful business. As a result, there was a new trend in reporting to emphasize the same type of sensationalism, but on a much larger scale. In addition, the increase in readership allowed newspapers to oppose the political power that previously dominated America media in much the same way as they do today. Journalists became confident enough to challenge political parties, which they did and defended by exposing organized corruption.
The increase in readers and the increasing sophistication of those readers also had an effect on job reporting. Many reporters became famous in their own right and therefore had to live in the spotlight, forcing them to become more ethical. Unknown reporters who wanted a piece of the pie began to go out in search of sensational stories. Readers devoured the outrageous stories that detailed how the average guy got away from both politicians and fat cats. What began as mere sensationalism eventually began to evolve into something far more serious and significant. Part of the reason for that was the influx of college-educated journalists. Previously, the pay and the newspapers were so respected that most of the best writers ran away from them. When those journalists were seen as dishonest, better writers entered the field and raised the bar for everyone.
This had the effect of changing the magazine industry in America as well. Those writers who are not able to make a living are usually relegated to the warehouses as writers of novels. Already the magazines had lost their top talent and saw the writing on the wall. The trend went from publishing literary works to newspapers following the field of muckraking. McClure’s writer became one of the magazine’s muckraking leaders in the field and an iconic figure of the time when popular magazine reporter Ida Tarbell led an investigation into the practices of Latin Oil. In fact, Tarbell intended to write a story that would portray Latin oil as the standard bearer of American glory in big business. a>. But before too long, Tarbell realized that the true story of how Standard Oil operates is not the barons’ share of glory. Tarbell digs deeper and discovers the sacred oil thing based on the concept of primitive privileges, which, it turns out, actually served to ensure that society not only received special privileges, but that it ran unethically. (about a century later, the same story will be told, only name changed from Latin Oil to Enron. .) After McClure Tarbell’s story It was printed, the investigation was made official and the muckraker was appointed.
And the muckraker king was a writer and socialist activist Upton Sinclair. Also, a socialist, not a Republican or a Democrat, whose investigation of muckraking into epidemic practices in America led to changes in the manna packing industry that make it much less dangerous to eat meat today. Upton Sinclair’sTungle is an iconic example of new muckraking. Of course, such a thing could never happen today. If a hero like Upton Sinclair were present today and identified himself as a socialite, he would immediately be seen as suspect. Then Big Fat Idiot and Noun Rectal and Faux News and Charlie Gibson would run in announcing that they had questioned Sinclair’s allegiance to their view of what it meant to be a loving American. The conservative media, he tells Americans who trust him, either ignore his findings or bring in pseudo-scientists to question their validity. And Wolf Blitzer invited him in the Situation Room to bring out the greater truths, which he explained about avoiding scientific errors, which would later be reversed by Rhonco himself.
